This brief guide from the University of Toronto offers some excellent thoughts on the purpose of the lit review and how to go about achieving your goal as a writer.
The Literature Review: A Few Tips on Conducting It
Dr. Joseph Levine of Michigan State has an everything-you-need-to-know-about “crafting, implementing and defending a thesis or dissertation” Web page. We highly recommend that you skim it when you start your proposal.
Writing and Presenting Your Dissertation or Thesis
Bill Trochim from Cornell University has assembled a marvelous online social science for beginners research methods center—but even experienced students will likely find useful information on these many pages. These include tutorials, simulations, and interactive pages to help you choose the appropriate statistical method.
Web Center for Social Research Methods
This terrific book, written in the 1980s by Howard Becker, appears here in abridged form by Dr. Yogesh Malhotra. If you’re in a bad mood about academic writing, these passages might ease your anxiety and get you back on track.
Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article
From Prof. John Chinook at Carleton University in Ottawa, here’s a handy guide for conceptualizing the different parts of a thesis or dissertation. Although you’ll find some minor differences with the Walden model, the information presented here is particularly valuable if you’re just getting started on your proposal.
How to Organize Your Thesis
This one’s obviously not a Walden thesis guidebook, but its individual sections are very useful as you conceptualize the parts of a thesis. Ignore the SUNY and IT particulars and you’ll benefit from its overall guidance on writing a thesis.
The SUNY IT Thesis Handbook
Somewhat tongue in cheek, but very readable, this guide from Purdue University’s Computer Science Department has lots of practical advice for developing and writing your dissertation—and not driving yourself and everyone else nuts in the process.
How to Write a Dissertation
We’re hesitant to recommend that you read an entire book on writing: Better you should sit down and write. But here are two worth considering. Each contains sections on modifying your dissertation for publishing elsewhere.
Cone, J D., & Foster, S. L. (1993). Dissertations and Theses from Start to Finish
Blocker, J. (1998) Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day
The ASGS has several features that nonmembers can access and use in their writing. Archived discussions from the extinct “Doc-Talk” listserv features advice on the oral defense, writer’s block, and working with committee chairs. Thesis News has short articles on the three R’s of dissertation basics, locating funding, and a few other relevant topics. The ASGS also maintains a list of freelance editors and statisticians.
ASGS home page
Best of Doc-Talk
Thesis News
ASGS Listing of Editors and Statisticians for Hire
Assuming you’d like to share your research in other venues, here are some resources to help you figure out how to transform your 200-page magnum opus into a 20-page masterpiece.
Unpublished? Try Your Dissertation
Writing for JEHR and Other Peer-Reviewed Journals
Academic Publishing for Graduate Students by Pamela Moss
Back to Help for Proposals, Theses, and Dissertations
